Life's tough for the "new" Ken Cuccinelli. Recently, the conservative Virginia attorney general petitioned the court to overturn a ruling that struck down the state's anti-sodomy law as unconstitutional.

While anti-sodomy laws have traditionally been used to target homosexuality, in this particular case the law was being used to prosecute a 47-year-old man, Wiliam Scott McDonald, for soliciting a 17-year-old girl to commit sodomy. He was convicted in 2005, but the decision was overturned by the Virginia Court due to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 Decision in Lawrence v. Texas which struck down Texas' anti-sodomy law.

Virginia had the opportunity thereafter to pass another anti-sodomy law, which would have targeted sexual acts between minors and adults, to replace the Crimes Against Nature statute, now considered unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the law, backed by a bipartisan group in 2004, was opposed by Cuccinelli and then killed on the Senate floor. The bill would have altered the Crimes Against Nature statute to comply with Lawrence.

There are several blogs and news sites that have focused on Cuccinelli's petition in defense of the law, saying that it has "nothing to do with" his stance on homosexuality.0 But given the opportunity he blatantly derailed to alter the law to comply with the standards of Lawrence, it seems fairly obvious that his defense of the Crimes Against Nature statute has everything to do with the aspects of the law that ban sodomy between consenting adults.

What's disappointing about this situation is that the law wasn't changed in time to prosecute McDonald without his conviction being overturned due to the law's unconstitutional provisions. This is an easy lesson for socially conservative politicians: back off from the bedrooms of consenting adults and change anti-sodomy legislation, or you're going to lose the cases that are crucial to protecting the interests of real victims.